


The River

by webcricket



Category: Supernatural
Genre: castiel x angel!reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 11:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webcricket/pseuds/webcricket
Summary: Tasked with peacefully conveying Castiel home to the halls of Heaven, you listen as he relates to you a children’s tale in order to illustrate why he must remain behind. I honestly don’t know what to categorize this as…maybe we’ll call it angelic banter with an underlying fluffy moral.





	The River

Seated on a slatted wooden bench situated at the outskirts of a quaint suburban park, a motionless spot of tan trench floating in a sea of lush grass, Castiel considered the carefully landscaped homogenous green-ness of the space stretching out before him. Even the bench and paved pathways were painted in a garish peeling emerald hue in apparent effort to make them stand out less and to further promote the unnatural uniformity of verdant color presiding over the scene. The whole effect of the scheme, rather than being unobtrusive to sight as the designer likely intended, was decidedly unsettling to the sense in its sameness. The angel had been enigmatically summoned here, by certified postal mail care of the Winchesters, to this peculiar park bench on what presented itself as a sunny Monday afternoon. He did not know exactly what or whom to expect at this mysterious meeting.

On the nearby playground, children played and shrieked wildly. Tiny bodies gesticulated on the monkey bars. Nimble legs kicked in a rhythmic rise and fall on the swing set. The avocado tinted metal slide squealed to announce every rider in the heat of the sun. A refreshing autumn breeze rustled the treetops surrounding the grounds. The leaves were just beginning to don their bold seasonal color – rebellious hints of red and yellow overhanging the edges of the park fence and threatening in protest to cast down their ruddy pigments any day into the unremitting green. The undulant air carried with it the occasional orange and black lined migrating Monarch butterfly in solitary fluttering travel south to overwinter. Castiel greatly admired the delicate winged creature’s resilient ability to endure the danger-fraught thousands of miles long journey across the states and into Mexico. He felt a certain kinship with their ability to survive this battering crossing of worlds.

“How long has it been, Castiel?”

He did not miss your approach in his reverie. Rather, he chose not to react. He sensed the proximity of a fellow angel when he first arrived. He assumed he was not bidden here to be slaughtered mercilessly in front of school children and their caretakers and surmised whomsoever you were, you posed no immediate threat. A small smile of recognition now tempered his world-weary aspect at the familiar resonance of your celestial voice interlaced with the soft-spoken speech of your selected vessel. He recalled you with fondness and a fresh appreciation, given everything he had experienced living with humanity, for your divine traits – not a soldier, but a sensible, astute, and above all else, compassionate angel. “Too long, Y/N,” he spoke low, the remark intended to be a friendly reminiscence upon the regretful expansive passage of time since you last crossed paths. An eternity by human standards.

You arched a perplexed brow, clarifying, “I mean, how many years has it been since you first came here? Since you raised Dean Winchester from Hell?”

He clasped his hands in his lap without looking at you, chuckling blithely to himself. Angels could be so literal sometimes. “Nine,” he answered.

“Nine,” you marveled, “nine years and so much change and upheaval after what must seem to you and endless age standing still in Heaven.”

“Then you understand why I’ve stayed behind,” he dared a glance sideways, receiving your inquiring gaze.

“I do not. Tell me.”

“Humanity is nothing like what we were taught,” he began, glad to plead his case to sympathetic ears. “Their hopes, their torments, the creativity, the destruction, the aptitudes for kindness and cruelty. There is a term they use here which aptly describes them, an oxymoron – beautiful disaster.”

“And why should we have any interest in these human concepts?”

“Because they need our help, our guidance, now more than ever, sorting out this mess they’ve created of the world before they destroy themselves,” his fists balls tightly, jaw set with firm conviction as he spoke.

“You mean the Winchesters need your help,” you countered. “Because humanity has been corrupting itself since the very dawn of time. They rise, they fall, they rise again. Not unlike you, it seems, Castiel. It’s what they do. This era will be no different.”

“It’s true that Sam and Dean are my friends. They are noble men. They have my loyalty and my life when the need arises.”

“So I’ve seen,” you remarked coolly. “How does one gain such special favor with Father to rise from the ashes time and again?”

He ignored your blatant attempt to provoke his ire. “Together with the Winchesters, I’ve saved countless lives, not to mention the world once or twice. Alone, I can only do so much,” his gravelly tone, burdened with sorrow, hung heavy in the air. “I’m one man.”

“You forget you are an angel.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he growled, impatience mounting, “though I do wonder about the rest of you.”

“Do you know why I’m here, Castiel?”

“Do I want to know?” his lip snarled bitterly.

“Your last official assignment, to gather the rogue angels and return them to Heaven is all but concluded in spite of you,” you pivoted to meet his steely stare. “Only one angel remains.”

He narrowed his blue gaze in defiant anticipation of the name.

“You, Castiel.”

He gave a throaty laugh, an impudent smirk spreading across his mouth, “And here I’d hoped this was a simple social visit.”

“You don’t belong here, Castiel,” you scoffed.

“And you believe I belong in Heaven?” he snorted, shaking his head. “It may not always be clear to me precisely where I fit in creation, but I know for certain where I do not.”

“Angels, all angels, belong in Heaven. Your duty…”

Disinterested in the canned lecture he’d heard a hundred times before from the mouths of lesser angels, he interrupted, “Humans have a parable about an ugly duckling they tell their offspring.”

“What do childish fables about foul fowl have to do with us?”

“Everything if it demonstrates my point.”

“And you think so little of your kin that you deign to tell a fairy tale?” you sneered, insulted.

“I think the inherent angelic capacity for grasping the finer nuances of emotion is on par to that of human children,” he intoned matter-of-factly. “Just listen, it’s worth hearing.”

You reluctantly acquiesced to his keenly imploring gaze with a nod.

“Once upon a time, there was a large egg misplaced in a duck’s nest. When it hatches, the bird looks and acts nothing like the rest of his duckling kin. He is larger and swims faster and bolder and free when out in the pond; but back in the farm yard, his home by birth, the other animals harass him endlessly and do not understand why he is different,” Cas glared pointedly at you too confirm if you were paying attention before going on. “He cannot change himself and becomes so unhappy that he decides to run away from his family. On that fateful day, he comes to a river, and sees big beautiful birds swimming there. He looks at them and knows they are swans. He admires them, wants to stay and watch them, and be beautiful like them. And yet he remains at a distance. Winter eventually comes to the river, and again, in the cold and frozen water the ugly duckling knows the deep despair of loneliness and not belonging. When Spring comes, he again sees the beautiful swans. He still desires to swim with them, be amongst them, but he is afraid of them and their unusual ways. Lost beside the river, not belonging anywhere, he looks into the water and sees the reflection of a beautiful swan and realizes it is him. He is no more an ugly duckling.”

“And what is it that you see when you look into the river, Castiel? Desiring to live with humans, wearing one of them as a vessel, it does not anymore make you one of them than our wings make us swans.”

“It’s not what I see in my own reflection, it’s who I see standing beside me,” his eyes shone with unrestrained emotion. “Friends who accept me for who I am without question. Friends who embrace me for my differences. Friends who welcome me into their home. I may not be one of them, nor do I want to be human, but I do belong here and it is here where I shall remain.” Castiel rose. Jaded by his prior interactions with other close-minded angels, wanting to distance himself from celestial trouble, presuming you could not begin to fathom his meaning, he strode briskly toward the park exit.

You followed quick on his heels, reaching out to clutch at his elbow to stop him, tenuously catching only a handful of the thick tan fabric of his trench coat in your fingertips. “Castiel, wait!”

He halted his retreat to confront you, the blue of his irises dimmed forlornly as he focused wearily upon your countenance.

“I think I do understand,” you murmured, glancing diffidently to your feet then back into his hopefully illuming features. “I mean, I do. You’re, as you say, an oxymoron. A beautiful disaster. Humankind’s angel. But what do you expect me to tell Heaven about your refusal to return?”

He read, with welcome relief, the open empathy in the swirling of grace thinly contained behind your vessel’s concerned regard. You grasped about him what so very few of his kin were willing or able to. He perceived, reflected in your eyes, the possibility that he was not alone in his angelic aberrations. “I don’t expect you to tell them anything. They wouldn’t understand,” he answered simply.

Your expression glazed with concern. “I cannot forestall the entire heavenly host with silence. They will send another of our brethren, one perhaps less sympathetic to your plight than I. I cannot return empty-handed without an explanation.”

Castiel looked down at your trembling grip on his coat. An optimistic smile touched his lips as he tenderly took up your hand in his own. “Then do not return yet. Choose to stay here. Stay with me. Walk amongst humanity for a little while. Then look into the river yourself and tell me what you see reflected therein.”

Choice. Free will. The foreignness of the notions made you dizzy with apprehension.

He folded his fingers warmly around your palm, soothing you with a confession, “I was afraid once too.”

You squeezed his hand in acknowledgement and he led you from the perfectly green park in search of the river.


End file.
